Classes & Workshops | Kyeren Regehr

Writing Workshops

REGISTRATION OPENS SOON!
IS THIS WORKSHOP FOR YOU?

Have a long poem you'd like to develop for submission to The Malahat Review's 2027 Long Poem Prize? Start early, establish a revision process, and give your poem the time and attention it deserves. (The deadline is usually Feb 1st.)

Want to learn how to structure, stretch, and deepen a long poem? Explore the possibilities of this expansive and wonderfully unwieldy form.

Dreaming of publishing a chapbook? Develop a long poem with an eye toward submission to chapbook publishers. (Check out many Canadian chapbook publishers on my RESOURCES page.)

Never written a long poem before? You're absolutely welcome! All you need is curiosity and a willingness to explore.

Over eight weeks, we'll read award-winning long poems as models of structure and technique, dive into generative writing, and discover ways to deepen and extend our work. We'll identify gaps and learn to write into them, explore narrative and non-narrative approaches, experiment with linear and nonlinear structures, and develop strategies for revision.

A long poem is ten pages or more in the modern tradition. It might be written in lines or prose, unfold in sections, or wander gloriously across many stanzas. There are no fixed rules, but there are plenty of ways to give shape to this expansive form.

HOW THE WORKSHOP WORKS

Eight weeks of guided writing, December 2, 2026 – January 27, 2027

Four three-hour live Zoom workshops alternate with four weeks of independent writing, supported by readings, creative prompts, and revision guidance delivered directly to your inbox. We'll take a break on December 23.

Live workshops: December 2 and 16; January 6 and 20
Time: 3:30–6:30 PM Pacific

Workshop fee: $325 CAD

Includes a private 30-minute editorial session in January, electronic readings from The Malahat Review, two issues of the journal in your mailbox, and so much more!

Two reduced-fee places are available. Payment plans can also be arranged—please inquire.

MY LONG POEM JOURNEY

I fell in love with the modern long poem after reading Aurian Haller's prizewinning poem in The Malahat Review. But I'd already been seduced by Oscar Wilde's "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" and Tennyson's Idylls of the King, and had tackled Beowulf and Gilgamesh along the way.

Did you know the CBC Poetry Prize used to be a long poem prize? I wrote my first long poem in a workshop with Tim Lilburn, who began several classes by reading aloud from Dante's Paradise. That poem went on to make the CBC longlist in 2009.

Before joining the editorial board of The Malahat Review, I'd been shortlisted for all three of its poetry contests, including the Long Poem Prize. Later, as a poetry editor, I had the extraordinary experience of reading enormous piles of long-poem submissions and helping select the prize shortlist.

My award-winning chapbook, Disassembling a Dancer, began as a long prose poem, much of which was published in Grain Magazine. The chapbook is essentially a long poem divided into titled sections.

My collection Cult Life contains two long poems that I eventually broke apart and threaded throughout the book. And there are more long poems in manuscripts still to come.

I can't stop writing long poems!